Keith Flint 1969-2019

Introduction

Today news broke that Keith Flint, dancer/singer with The Prodigy, committed suicide. He was 49 years old. A short tribute.

Keith Flint

Flint was born on September 17th, 1969, in Redbridge, London. At the end of the 1980’s he was introduced to rave (a party where dance music is played). He spent a lot of his time dancing in The Barn. One of the DJ’s was Liam Howlett. Keith got into contact and got a hold of recordings of one his DJ sets and material written by Howlett himself. The quality of his own work was undeniable and Flint proposed Howlett to start performing with him and two extra dancers. MC Maxim Reality was added to the line-up as MC and thus The Prodigy was born.

After the 1992 debut album Experience, masterpiece Music For The Jilted Generation was released in 1994 (more on that album at a later time).

Firestarter

In 1996 the single Firestarter was released, including a leading vocal role for Flint, as well as being the main focus in the accompanying video. At the end of that same year the single Breathewas released, a stunning song, with Flint providing vocals once again. Both singles pointed towards the The Fat Of The Land album, where Flint can be heard in 4 of the songs. the album was released in 1997 and went through the roof. It was hugely popular. Everybody wanted to work with The Prodigy. Due to his visibility in the video’s Flint was regarded as the band leader by many. The real brains behind The Prodigy, Liam Howlett, was okay with that, as he didn’t want to be in the spotlights.

The Prodigy – Firestarter – Videostill

In 2002 the single Baby’s Got A Temper was released, with Flint providing vocals again. He did not contribute vocally to the 2004 album Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned. He could be heard on the 2009 album Invaders Must Die. After that, the band released the albums World’s On Fire (live, 2011), The Day Is My Enemy (2015) and No Tourists (2018).

Live

The band kept on touring and remained hugely successful. Large venues sold out without any effort at all. I saw the band live in 1998 at the Drum Rhythm Festival in Amsterdam. A stunning energetic performance.

Death

Contrary to his image as a dangerous, aggressive, creepy, crazy person, Flint was a laid-back friendly man. Unfortunately life was too hard for him and he could not see any other way out than to take his own life, presumably on March 4th, 2019.